It is common today to provide for the automated acceptance of currency in transactions. For example, transit busses in the United States and Canada are normally equipped with fareboxes to collect fares from riders and securely store the coins, tokens, and bills used to pay these fares.
Typically, so as to allow more rapid boarding of the bus by fare paying patrons, the fareboxes are adapted to receive the coinage of the passenger's fare in bulk, i.e., the passenger drops a hand full of coins into a chute in payment of the fare. This hand full of coins may include many denominations of coins possibly ranging from pennies through Susan B. Anthony dollars. In some prior art systems, this hand full of coins would simply pass to an escrow area, visible to the bus operator, in order to allow the operator to determine if the proper fare has been tendered.
However, in more sophisticated systems, automatic accounting for the fare may be provided. Accordingly, the fare may be singulated for serial output to a coin rejector through the use of a coin singulator. However, in typical prior art systems the coin singulator utilizes a plurality of pins, brushes, gates, and/or slots in order to provide singulation. Although such systems will operate to singulate coins, they suffer from the disadvantage of presenting a plurality of surfaces between which coins may become jammed or retained.
Furthermore, these prior art systems, due to their slots and gates do not provide ready access for an operator to clear such jams. Instead, typically a mechanical arm arrangement with brushes is operated in an effort to clear jams or miss-feeds. However, if this mechanical clearing mechanism should fail, such prior art singulators must be disassembled by a technician in order to once again be put into operation. This can require a very expensive resource, such as a city bus, to be removed from service for a somewhat minor problem.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a coin singulator adapted to provide serial output of a plurality of coins received substantially simultaneously, including various denominations of coins, which presents a minimum of surfaces and voids for causing jamming, retention, or missfeeds of the coins.
A further need exists in the art for a coin singulator which is open in design to allow for an operator to remove coins, and other objects, prior to their singulation. Accordingly, an operator may easily self service jams without necessitating return of the system to a service facility.